The residential proxy IPs and the mobile terminals in those farms are just the exit holes.
They don't decide what to post independently. An orchestrating application is hosted somewhere, and that somewhere is Russia.
They don't decide what to post independently. An orchestrating application is hosted somewhere, and that somewhere is Russia.
In Russia it's higher latency, way more expensive and there are lots of connectivity issues. Its not like Russia have ministry of social network botting that require to host it within country.
Reason why these bot networks are effective and hard to find is because it's not some "KGB" minister respobsibility.
Botnets, malware, botting in Russia is someone small criminal enterprises with a lot of people doing it independently. They might be affilated to government or not at all - might be they just sell services to highest bidder.
I'd say you never checked Yandex.Cloud pricing. That's just not true - it's not cheaper.
Putin seems to very much like control, and I doubt he would delegate control over foreign propaganda to agents outside Russia.
This is especially true if you want to spread a lie. Lies have to be coordinate, the truth does not.